I love credit cards so much!

[WDWRook]

I've read GoC cards may expand to BBY. Now, if they're considered GCs, could you buy BBY GCs at a discount when PPDG or Cashstar runs those promos (and earn 3x or 5x UR with Ink), use BBY GCs to buy GoC, and essentially pay down your student loans at a discount or funnel the savings into a 529? I haven't put much stock into it because from everything I've read, GoC seems to be having some issues. DPs report the max eGC amount reduced from $500 down to $300, and physical cards going OOS or possibly being pulled from TRU since you can still load a max $500 on them.

ETA: I've posted this before, but it bears repeating since the subject of student loans has come up again. I've been paying student loans serviced by AES and Mohela using CIP via Plastiq, and they've been coding as 3x, which more than offsets the 2.5% fee.

Why would CIP code that as 3x? I wonder if CSR or the CIBP would code at 3x??

What is BBY and PPDG?

Seperate question, I have some business/sales/CLE training classes I take every year. Any thoughts on if those would code as more then 1x on any various cards?

 

[Lain]

Why would CIP code that as 3x? I wonder if CSR or the CIBP would code at 3x??

What is BBY and PPDG?

Seperate question, I have some business/sales/CLE training classes I take every year. Any thoughts on if those would code as more then 1x on any various cards?

Gyft, PPDG, Cashstar code as internet services, which earns 3x on CIP, 5x on CIC/Ink+. They don't earn bonus points on CSR.

Best Buy and PayPal Digital Gifts.

You'll have to check their MCC: https://www.visa.com/supplierlocator/search/index.jsp

 

[wendow]

Adding to the list of #firstworldproblems and #whatwouldyoudo:

So DH got an offer from American Airlines. The offer is to take a 6 day 5 night trip to Maui, stay at the Westin Ka'anapali, car rental for the duration and 5,000 AA miles for $649 total. We'd have to respond by the end of the month and then have one year to go and use it. In return, we sit through a 90 minute - 2 hour timeshare presentation. We've never been to Maui, we can swing the fee and we can fit it into the vacation schedule next year ... barely. My problem is that I can't find ANY saver awards available for a flight with lie flat seats on any bloody airline for the month we'd be able to go. I'm toying with the idea of booking a refundable fare and then waiting to see if saver awards get released. I'd hate to get stuck with a high fee refundable fare. We could just blow it off and not take the offer, but YOLO, you know. I'm not sure how booking in economy and upgrading with miles works since I've never done that but I am willing to look into it. I'm just wondering if there is anything I'm missing or should look into. So if anyone has ideas or suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

I'm so jealous of your problems...only advice I have is to GO!!!

 

[Albort]

Adding to the list of #firstworldproblems and #whatwouldyoudo:

So DH got an offer from American Airlines. The offer is to take a 6 day 5 night trip to Maui, stay at the Westin Ka'anapali, car rental for the duration and 5,000 AA miles for $649 total. We'd have to respond by the end of the month and then have one year to go and use it. In return, we sit through a 90 minute - 2 hour timeshare presentation. We've never been to Maui, we can swing the fee and we can fit it into the vacation schedule next year ... barely. My problem is that I can't find ANY saver awards available for a flight with lie flat seats on any bloody airline for the month we'd be able to go. I'm toying with the idea of booking a refundable fare and then waiting to see if saver awards get released. I'd hate to get stuck with a high fee refundable fare. We could just blow it off and not take the offer, but YOLO, you know. I'm not sure how booking in economy and upgrading with miles works since I've never done that but I am willing to look into it. I'm just wondering if there is anything I'm missing or should look into. So if anyone has ideas or suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

what city is calypso from?

 

[AmyAnne]

ETA: I've posted this before, but it bears repeating since the subject of student loans has come up again. I've been paying student loans serviced by AES and Mohela using CIP via Plastiq, and they've been coding as 3x, which more than offsets the 2.5% fee.

Wait - so if I used Plastiq to pay my student loan company with my Ink+ I could get 5x UR points?

 

[Albort]

Wait - so if I used Plastiq to pay my student loan company with my Ink+ I could get 5x UR points?

nope, best to use any card ur making minimums with or your 1.5x CFU. but you will be at a loss.

edit: even setting the business to Phone/cable/internet services on plastiq didnt work either...

 

[Lain]

Wait - so if I used Plastiq to pay my student loan company with my Ink+ I could get 5x UR points?

Not sure. I'd love to see your DP!

 

[AmyAnne]

Not sure. I'd love to see your DP!

I might just send them $25 to see what happens.

 

[AmyAnne]

nope, best to use any card ur making minimums with or your 1.5x CFU. but you will be at a loss.

edit: even setting the business to Phone/cable/internet services on plastiq didnt work either...

It seems pretty random. My student loan provider is a huge company so I suspect it's correctly coded, but I'm tempted to try just on the off-chance that it codes as x5.

 

[Lain]

It seems pretty random. My student loan provider is a huge company so I suspect it's correctly coded, but I'm tempted to try just on the off-chance that it codes as x5.

Seriously. Ours (Aes and Mohela) are in Plastiq's payee system, but I've been getting 3x on CIP for 2 months now. Don't know how long this ride will last.

 

[platamama]

Adding to the list of #firstworldproblems and #whatwouldyoudo:

So DH got an offer from American Airlines. The offer is to take a 6 day 5 night trip to Maui, stay at the Westin Ka'anapali, car rental for the duration and 5,000 AA miles for $649 total. We'd have to respond by the end of the month and then have one year to go and use it. In return, we sit through a 90 minute - 2 hour timeshare presentation. We've never been to Maui, we can swing the fee and we can fit it into the vacation schedule next year ... barely. My problem is that I can't find ANY saver awards available for a flight with lie flat seats on any bloody airline for the month we'd be able to go. I'm toying with the idea of booking a refundable fare and then waiting to see if saver awards get released. I'd hate to get stuck with a high fee refundable fare. We could just blow it off and not take the offer, but YOLO, you know. I'm not sure how booking in economy and upgrading with miles works since I've never done that but I am willing to look into it. I'm just wondering if there is anything I'm missing or should look into. So if anyone has ideas or suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

That sounds like a nice offer. I accepted a similar type of offer on the Big Island a few years ago, with Hilton, so I don't know if this will apply to Starwood, but... IIRC, I had to pay upfront and had a year to make my reservations and if I couldn't go within the year, then I would forfeit the money. Also, if I made a change within 30 days of travel then I paid a penalty to rebook. And it was on a space available basis, meaning that if it were a popular travel time then we couldn't book it. So you might want to check on the details of all that. We ended up going and everything did work out, including our award ticket flights (I put these on hold first before making my reservations), but DD had to miss school since we couldn't do it over a school vacation period (too popular a time to travel).

2nd piece of advice if you go: DO NOT BUY a timeshare through the developer (whoever the timeshare presentation is through). Seriously, and no matter what goodies they offer you. Give them your 90 minutes (set a timer) and be done. I wish I listened to my own advice on this (I have rescinded a couple of purchases so far bc I get caught up in the whole thing). You can buy these on the resale market for a fraction of the cost, even DVC (although DVC tends to hold its value better than others).

 

[Albort]

It seems pretty random. My student loan provider is a huge company so I suspect it's correctly coded, but I'm tempted to try just on the off-chance that it codes as x5.

let us know your coding though. Mastercard, Amex, and Visa all code the same for me (government services). and good luck! :]

 

[LynnTH]

From the link @Lain shared:
"Keep in mind that even though Chase business cards do not normally report, they will still be counted as Chase has this information internally."
"Update: It seems like Chase business cards aren’t count."

I'm looking for recent DPs of whether this is still the case.

This is what I am confused about. Some say the Business Cards don't count but because it is Chase that they can see it and count it against your 5/24.

I just applied DH for the SPG Business and got approved so going to try and use Platiq on that to cover half of our expenses. Still have another $4000 or so in organic spend. Would love to try for the Marriott Business if I knew for sure it would not count against the 5/24 (and I have to wait until I am at 0/30 with Chase, which would be Mid August)

Trying to find other Business cards that would work but not finding much of anything..

 

[AmyAnne]

Not sure. I'd love to see your DP!

let us know your coding though. Mastercard, Amex, and Visa all code the same for me (government services). and good luck! :]

Because I am procrastinating working on a really boring proofreading project, I just used Plastiq to pay ACS $25. I will say signing up for Plastiq was super-easy. ACS is one of their recognized payees but I did have to provide the address because apparently payments get sent to several locations. Not expecting this to work at all but will be very happy if it does. I'll be sure to post the results here as soon as the payment posts on my Ink+ account.

 

[peel]

Seriously. Ours (Aes and Mohela) are in Plastiq's payee system, but I've been getting 3x on CIP for 2 months now. Don't know how long this ride will last.

That's like my huge mortgage company coding as something triggering 3x on my CIP through Tio. I can't tell which bucket it's falling under because it says:
+ 1 Point per $1 earned on all purchases
+ 2 Points per $1 on trvl, ship, adv, telecom
I'm not going to call attention to it by asking any questions, I'll just ride the wave.

 

[Lain]

Wow, I see on DoC that ThankYou points and Ultimate Rewards points to be redeemable through PayPal. TYPs to be valued at 0.8 cents. Details are lite on the UR partnership. Separately, I see PayPal has acquired Tio; and if you didn't know already, PayPal owns Venmo.

 

[GlamMistress]

Adding to the list of #firstworldproblems and #whatwouldyoudo:

So DH got an offer from American Airlines. The offer is to take a 6 day 5 night trip to Maui, stay at the Westin Ka'anapali, car rental for the duration and 5,000 AA miles for $649 total. We'd have to respond by the end of the month and then have one year to go and use it. In return, we sit through a 90 minute - 2 hour timeshare presentation. We've never been to Maui, we can swing the fee and we can fit it into the vacation schedule next year ... barely. My problem is that I can't find ANY saver awards available for a flight with lie flat seats on any bloody airline for the month we'd be able to go. I'm toying with the idea of booking a refundable fare and then waiting to see if saver awards get released. I'd hate to get stuck with a high fee refundable fare. We could just blow it off and not take the offer, but YOLO, you know. I'm not sure how booking in economy and upgrading with miles works since I've never done that but I am willing to look into it. I'm just wondering if there is anything I'm missing or should look into. So if anyone has ideas or suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Do you have status with a certain airline? Some will let you upgrade via miles, other won't. American does allow it:
https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/redeem/award-travel/upgrade-with-miles.jsp
I don't know where you are flying from, but lie flat (while nice) really isn't completely necessary to Hawaii. I say that as a person who paid $4k cash for the luxury one time. I've flown to Hawaii several time first class in the old fashioned big seats, and that was just fine too. I've also flown coach, but I don't recommend it unless you have no other way to get there. Quite frankly, Hawaii is the literal definition of paradise - it's so worth the time, jet lag and money.

I've never stayed at the Westin on Maui but I'm sure it's nice. I've done the Ritz Carlton, Andaz Hyatt and Hyatt Regency. Go on this trip - do the road to Hana and eat at Mama's Fish House. Trust me.

 

[Albort]

That's like my huge mortgage company coding as something triggering 3x on my CIP through Tio. I can't tell which bucket it's falling under because it says:
+ 1 Point per $1 earned on all purchases
+ 2 Points per $1 on trvl, ship, adv, telecom
I'm not going to call attention to it by asking any questions, I'll just ride the wave.

dispute the charge...

will tell u what category it actually is. :]

 

[Alexle2007]

I guess I am missing something with these services like Plastiq to meet minimum spend because aren't they just eating into the value of the bonus? I was initially going to pay my real estate taxes with DH's new CIP but they want an extra 3% for using a credit card. That comes to $148. That's a nice percentage of the bonus I would be giving up. It seems better just to put things on the card that don't charge an extra fee.

 

[Albort]

I guess I am missing something with these services like Plastiq to meet minimum spend because aren't they just eating into the value of the bonus? I was initially going to pay my real estate taxes with DH's new CIP but they want an extra 3% for using a credit card. That comes to $148. That's a nice percentage of the bonus I would be giving up. It seems better just to put things on the card that don't charge an extra fee.

it depends on how much you value them. when plastiq was 2.5% fee, 3x return, some people find that worth it. $2000 bill charges $50 fee, earning 7650 UR points. so you technique buying UR points @ .006 cpp. some people find that worth it, some dont.
ppl say only to use them to make minimum spendings. if you cant make the spendings, this is probably the best and easiest way to do so.